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Eckhart Tault
'Eckhart Tault '''is the current Lord and Patriarch of the Tault clan and family, and Master of the Tault Bank. One of Wayrest's most prominent Mercer magnates, Eckhart is popularly known as ''"the richest man in Tamriel" - a jest of a title, perhaps, but a jest not terribly far from the truth. A man whose vaults hold greater riches than most kingdoms' coffers, Eckhart has clawed his way to the top through guile, instinct, and above all - through sheer, stubborn determination to succeed. In his person, the Roycrofts have found their most vehement critic among the Mercers - and their most dangerous enemy. __FORCETOC__ Appearance Eckhart Tault is one of those rude sorts who stubbornly refuse their bodies the sweet luxuries of sagging and looking rightly old; it’s quite obvious the old man has done everything in his power (and a good few things besides, including arcane restorative treatments) to keep hale, tight-wound and hearty. A little short for a Breton, Eckhart has that particular look about him that would best be described as “a cruiserweight boxer” – and indeed, the Tault Patriarch has always felt a deep affinity for that noble sport, something that’s saved his skin more than once in his (oftentimes troubled) youth. Even now, at an age that might be called venerable and is fast approaching “ancient”, there’s something to be said about the broad, almost square cut of his jaw, or about the way his round eyes of muddled hazel won’t stop drilling demandingly into you; not for a moment. “Like he’s just waitin’ for a nice chance to sock you one, see.” Of course, try as he might, even old Master Tault can’t fight the march of time indefinitely. Already, Eckhart's black hair has lost much of its rich colour, starting to wilt into a drab and sorry grey; and even his health - his most prized possession - is slowly failing, and his body is racked often by fits of coughing, and that particular stiffness of joints and shortness of breath familiar to all Tamriel’s worst smokers. At this point in his long and storied career, Eckhart can afford to dress with the relative simplicity of a man too mind-bogglingly rich to give his wealth physical form. Long crimson coats, with tall and imposing collars, and lined inescapably with buttons of gold or silver; crisp undershirts that smell invariably of something pleasant, and then just the faintest whiff of dank old vaults; and his one vice and indulgence, countless rings and amulets, and various other devotional signets and trinkets besides. Biography Born at the tail end of the Third Era’s fourth century, Master Eckhart Tault is of that same generation of great (if not necessarily or exactly noble) personae that spawned the likes of Queen Elysana and Lord Abelard Roycroft. The proverbial “nephew to my distant uncle’s cousin, twice removed”, Eckhart was a Tault – but only just; one drop in a sea of nephews, cousins and brothers, all labouring under the watchful eyes of the patriarch, and all sharing in the ambition of one day sitting on that tall throne themselves. His father, Peryn Tault, was the grandson of the patriarch, true – but only fourth in line to succeed his own father, who in turn had an older brother of his own to contend with. The Tault banking clan was sprawling, and it was better for most to simply get on with their businesses rather than lounge about, scheming and wishing after the ultimate prize. And so Eckhart did. Where the older of the two brothers, Rodard, was taken under their father’s wing for moulding into a partner, and one day – a successor, Eckhart was educated not as a banker or businessman, but as a Mercer lawyer. Stepping onto the stage not long after his twentieth birthday, young Eckhart’s first few cases were largely successful (not least because of his rather imposing surname); his fifth, however, was to be his last, when a deal in the cutting went unexpectedly and catastrophically south. But not all was necessarily lost; rescued in the short term by his quick wits and in the long term – by his family, Eckhart bounced back and over his sluggish, apathetic brother with enough force to impress even his understandably sceptical father. The next time anyone heard the name “Eckhart Tault”, he was already a minor partner in his father’s branch of the Taults’ banking enterprises - and marrying off into the nobility (struggling and destitute nobility, forced into the arrangement by the necessity of a deal; but nobility all the same) at the ripe young age of twenty three. Having thus sealed the deal on one of Peryn Tault’s more prestigious enterprises, and skipped a few steps on the social ladder along the way, Eckhart would enjoy the sainted chains of marital life for a whole of five years - before divorcing over accusations of infidelity that he had just thrust, rather abruptly, upon his noble wife. The heart of the matter, of course, lay rather elsewhere - or so, at least, did some tongues wag at the time. Eckhart Tault had come a ways in life since the day of his marriage, and since the death of his father some three years afterwards. Having shunted his brother unceremoniously out of the way, and advancing aggressively into Wayrest’s money-lending scene, the future patriarch nonetheless almost crashed and burned again when the succession dispute then plaguing the kingdom took a turn for the worse. With Prince Helseth reneging on a number of Tault loans – Eckhart’s own included – there was little left to do but hope that similar investments into the Duchess of Alcaire, Elysana, would prove more fruitful; but one of those little things he could do was make one very important bet. Staking his nascent reputation, and a fair sum of money besides, in a gamble against one of his more influential cousins, Eckhart managed to guess not just the outcome of the succession crisis, but also Wayrest’s fortunes in its immediate aftermath. Now one step ahead, and with the certainty of a Tault on the rise, he found it paid far better to cut his losses with his disillusioned aristocratic wife; their one son notwithstanding (and quickly cast aside and forgotten by Eckhart himself), the two split in a quick and hush-hush affair. It wouldn’t be long (just long enough for propriety, really) before he was engaged again, this time to a fellow Mercer – Sabine Errancourt. In the years since that auspicious marriage, Eckhart Tault has advanced in (small) leaps and (always carefully measured) bounds. The death of his great-grandfather, the former Tault patriarch – and there was a man who had lived to be ancient by all standards except perhaps Elven – left the great banking clan effectively divided between a small handful of men; all greater than the whole rest of the family, and yet not one of them great enough for true rule. By then, and thanks in no small part to his marriage-alliance with a branch of the Errancourts, Eckhart was just influential enough to be grudgingly recognized as one of the heads of the family – a junior partner, but a partner all the same. It was a platform to build from, a beachhead for further expansion, and he seized upon it with all his might and acumen; plugging holes in his lines with trusted relatives and servants, reaching out to add yet new clients, debtors, agents and partners to his network, branching out into businesses he hadn’t even heard of before, but would soon learn to think nothing about. It’s been near a decade now since his careful and deliberate empire-building finally yielded that ultimate prize he’d so lusted for – unchallenged rule as the Tault patriarch; it's been a few years longer than that since he's first had to count himself a widower, lone father to his four heirs. And though his marriage with Sabine had always carried a particular businesslike air to it, it had never languished; and his business now is lonelier for it. Yet - all anyone ever remembers, and all he ever lets them remember, is that here is a man richer than you; richer than sense; richer, perhaps, than any other in Tamriel. Here is Master Eckhart Tault. Talents Eckhart is a shrewd man; and that’s no great surprise, when you take into account he is, indisputably, Wayrest’s richest man - and still alive to smirk about it. Over his long life, the Tault Patriarch has been a Mercer lawyer, a loanshark, a pawnbroker, a partner in what has grown to be Tamriel’s biggest and richest bank – and he still recalls bits, bobs and shreds from all those walks of life. What’s more, and certainly most significantly, life has taught Eckhart that no skill is more important than a willingness to pick yourself up after falling, and to keep going; and he does, and disdains everyone and anyone who won’t. Category:Characters Category:Breton Category:Wayrest Category:Mercers